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Keynote Address of the Honorable Anthony M. Babauta (Quoting Banaban historical issues)

Keynote Address of the Honorable Anthony M. Babauta, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Insular Areas National Asian Pacific Islander American Historic Preservation Forum, San Francisco, CA USA - June 25, 2010

Good evening, it is truly my sincere pleasure to be here with you tonight to help celebrate this first-ever – Asian Pacific Islander National Historic Preservation Forum. I am also honored to be one of several keynote speakers during this forum, having been invited by the Guam Preservation Trust to share some of my thoughts on cultural and historic preservation. I am also honored to speak with such distinguished individuals as Ms. Irene Hirano and Dr. Sue Falon Chung. The roles they have undertaken as professionals are not only inspirational for young women, but equally important in raising the preservation awareness level throughout communities here in the United States; ensuring that the diversity of our great Nation was also built with the contributions of immigrants from across the Pacific and Asia; from cultures whose history and existence span thousands of years. Both Ms. Hirano and Dr. Chung have worked on this for decades, as many others have in this room as well, and for this we are all grateful and I applaud all of you for your continuing efforts.

To give you some background on who I am, I am an island boy – from a small village, on a tiny island, in an expansive Pacific Ocean. I am a native of Guam – a Chamorro. I made my way to Washington, D.C. more than a decade ago to work on Capitol Hill. I have been fortunate in my chosen profession of public service, one-year in the personal office of former Guam Delegate Robert Underwood, ten years with the House Natural Resources Committee, and this coming September will be my first year anniversary of being confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Insular Areas.

Since assuming this role, I have had the distinct pleasure of representing my office, the Office of Insular Affairs and the Department of the Interior at various speaking engagements here on the mainland and abroad.

When I was asked by Mr. Joe Quinata, the Chief Program Officer for the Guam Preservation Trust to speak at your inaugural conference, was told of the topics that would be discussed and the brainstorming that would occur my response was instinctively affirmative. As many of you know, likely through experience of your own, those who live and work in Washington DC sometimes develop an “inside the beltway” mentality which can detach individuals from the rest of what is happening in the country. This is not to say that the folks you’ve elected do not care or that as policy-makers we are blind or shortsighted, but because day to day decision-making processes can be systematized and determined by an administration’s agenda or an agency’s mission, you either anxiously await or vehemently seek out opportunities that take you back to why and where it all started for you. You look for the moments in your career that will elicit a call to action and reiterate why it is you chose the life of a public servant over the lure of the private sector.

This evening, as you enjoy all of the good company, the meal, and thought-provoking dialogue, I would like to once again thank the National Asian Pacific Islander American Historic Preservation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation for the outstanding work they do throughout the country, strengthening our communities, engaging our youth but most importantly, the efforts they undertake educating others about the impact and contributions we have made as Asian Americans Pacific Islanders, reminding us not just of our history but the impact we have had on this great country.

Si Yu'us ma'åse for allowing me to be a part of this very important and all too often, overlooked but essential conversation about conserving, preserving and safeguarding what is uniquely our own, our rich and distinct cultural heritage as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

About two weeks ago, I began thinking about what I wanted to impart this evening. On the advice of my staff, I will not begin my substantive message with – one day, a Chinese, a Japanese, and a Filipino walk into a bar – although I think I have a responsibility to be somewhat entertaining during the keynote address, my staff – a haole, Hawaiian, and a Guatemalan knows any rendition of the story always makes a mockery of the Chinese says the Haole, the Japanese says the Hawaiian, or the Filipino says the Guatemalan. All three women actually lobbied for a gay pride joke – but I said that would be highly insensitive, inappropriate, and out of bounds for San Francisco.

So, two weeks ago I was driving through possibly one of the most beautiful, scenic and quaint villages in the southernmost tip of my home island of Guam, in the village of Malesso. Now, just to be clear for the Guam folks who are here this evening and know that I grew up in the southern village of Agat – I said that Malesso might possibly be one of the most beautiful. Anyway, I had just left my parent’s home after attending Sunday mass and a small gathering of relatives afterwards for brunch. Before heading back to the hotel, I opted for a calming and mind-clearing drive around the island and ended up on the shore, just below the volcanic hills that were the site of initial contact between the Chamorro people and Spanish galleons in the village of Umatac; the place where Chamorros led the first resistance movement against the Reduccíon, a systematic effort to subdue Chamorros into accepting Christianity and ultimately Spanish colonial rule.

As I watched the waves calmly and rhythmically batter across the rocks, below me I could hear the inviting beats of old-school hip hop classics, like Run DMC and Cool and the Gang blasting from a DJ’s booth to celebrate some event, meanwhile a handful of Japanese, and European tourists marveled at the jaw-dropping site of the Mama’on Channel, the lagoon’s deep main pass that runs west to east past Malesso Pier, all while two beautifully coiffed and elegantly postured caribou sat under the shade of a tree, swishing their tails, enjoying the occasional bouts of cool breeze as they patiently awaited their owner’s banana treats.

It is here in the midst of Guam’s comeliness and magnificence, with the backdrop of history and progress, globalization and thoughts about the impending military build up, the forthcoming changes the island would soon confront, mixed with an eerie nostalgia for home, that an internal conversation was prompted about what conservation meant for me personally, principally as a Chamorro, secondly, as a native of Guam and then as a Pacific Islander attempting to contextualize and apprehend its meaning within a pan-pacific island point of view.

As I overlooked the bay, with its array of vivid blues and shallow waters, I was reminded of a story that was once shared with me. It was the story of Banaba Island and its people, a coral island located west of the Gilbert Island Chains, east of Nauru, which today forms part of the Republic of Kirabati. The word “banaba” means stone and Banaban oral traditions contend that the island arose from the sea, out of the forehead of Tabakea, a turtle that was buried in the middle of the ocean when the world first came to be. The people that inhabited the island are said to have been the first “anti aomata” before they became men and women; they were half spirit, half animal.

Not far from Banaba lie two former British colonies, the large islands of what is present-day Australia and New Zealand. During the early years of the 20th Century, the young and quickly growing industrial colonies confronted rapid population growths in the face of limited resources and little arable land. As political tensions on the islands rose, leaders scrambled determinedly to find cheaper sources of fertilizer to feed the rapidly expanding colonies.

Desperate for food the British, under the auspices of the British Phosphate Commission turned to the nearby island of Banaba, where the land was lush and the resources vast. Over the subsequent years, 1,080 acres were mined for phosphate and 20 millions tons of the island was dug up, loaded on ships and carried away.

In return, the people of Banaba were left with the brutal remnants of their resource extracted, now barren island. They became the inheritors of a lasting legacy of history’s most heinous crimes: the barbarous, systematic colonial uprooting of a once rich, untethered culture, traditional way of life and most saliently, the ruthless disruption of an entire people and their identity.

Following World War II, the British Phosphate Commission eager to resume its complete mining of the island, relocated the island’s entire native population, a group of about 1,000 islanders to the neighboring island of Rabi. Forced into resettlement, the Banaban’s arrived in Fiji unfamiliar with the native culture, not speaking the language and given very minimal resources for survival. Land, the very basis of ALL Banaban identity and kinship relations was obliterated and with this, so went the very foundation of their existence.

Why the somber tale of one group’s near extinction? Because unnervingly, such brutal and vicious depictions of colonial uprooting of indigenous cultures and entire societies, no longer conjure the once emphatic appall of the past. This is not to say we no longer care. Quite the contrary, I believe we all do, otherwise, we would not be gathered here to discuss over the course of several days how to recapture and revitalize something that could be lost forever. However, it is the multiplicity of stories such as this one that has lent us as a society to become increasingly anesthetized in our reaction; the shock factor for most has largely worn off. Extinction is too often an afterthought.

As many know, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has recently listed the ancient Chamorro village of Pagat on its list as one of America’s eleven most endangered historical places for 2010. Apart from being an ancient village where the native Chamorros once lived, worked, survived, and played prior to Spanish contact, Pagat now serves as a rallying call in the resurgence of Chamorro cultural preservation, especially now in the midst of a great wave of change to the island’s social, political, and economic landscape with the expected realignment of U.S. military forces in the Pacific.

There has been a great amount of discussion, in Guam, in the US mainland, and also within the Federal government on how to be respectful of Guam’s cultural sites and historic artifacts while meeting our country’s mission and responsibility of keeping peace in the Asia-Pacific region. It is incumbent upon us to ensure that Pagat does not disappear on our watch and to ensure that every Chamorro, every person who has ever called Guam their home since Spanish contact and has been able to see and witness Guam’s culture beyond its food and hospitality, recognize the importance of conserving Pagat for the generations that will follow.

Today, a crossroad lies before us: do we reenact the history played out on the Banabans and many immigrant communities that have made the U.S. their home or do we emerge as proactive stewards to protect and defend, protect and conserve, protect and preserve what ties us back to who we are. This is justice on our terms.

This morning during breakfast Paul Osaki, the Executive Director of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California briefly touched on the history of minority communities who immigrated to the U.S.; and for generations have discovered and immersed themselves in all that is American. This conference and the work that you do every day makes America rediscover us.

Last December I took my 7 year-old daughter Gabriella on her first visit to Guam. The preservation of Pagat and rediscovery of Chamorro culture is something that should not elude her. It is something I want available for her to experience first-hand – to hike down the trail, walk through the ruins, and know that her ancestors and our culture has existed for thousands of years. I want this for her as I know she will one day want it for her children.

This evening, as we discuss a broader, comprehensive interpretation of what conservation has meant and what it must mean moving forward, in our collective “rescuing” of our own Asian American Pacific Islander identity, it is essential to underscore the pressing danger our activities or inactivity and oftentimes, unintentional neglect have created. Just as our earth lies in peril from climate change and global warming, so do our indigenous cultures and populations. And if left unheeded, perhaps not during our lifetime, but certainly during the lives of our children and grandchildren, entire societies could be wiped out and irrevocably lost.

That Sunday afternoon, as I continued on my walk through Malesso, I pondered, as a Chamorro, what did conservation mean for me? What, how and at what point in my life did the relevancy of my cultural heritage become inextricably linked to my personal identity? I thought of Chamorro food, traditions, stories I had been told growing up, the values my parent’s had instilled- attempting earnestly to identify what it was that most evocatively reminded and cemented for me who I was and the legacy of my ancestors. I thought of Guam, its history, development and the generations that would follow. I thought of language and how in spite of actively engaging and falling short of fluency, I could still grasp the nuances and contexts in which certain sayings were employed. There was no inherent value in speaking Chamorro, other than, possibly my most important realization that afternoon, the value I attribute to it.

Many of my thoughts that day were rhetorical in nature and likely have no simplistic answer. Nonetheless, they have emerged as a genuine concern and an ambition, crystallized in the wish that whatever interpretation we attempt to conceive, attribute and execute in our conservation efforts, must be somehow based on the need to affirm the relevancy and immediacy of our actions.

Throughout the world, at this very moment for every cultural and historic site that continues abandoned, unattended, there lies a monument, an ancient temple, a relic painting or sculpture; palpable expressions of civilizations’ greatest creativity and technical achievements that are being salvaged. Those of you involved in the field of cultural preservation and conservation, many of the folks gathered here this evening, have been traditionally concerned with restoring and maintaining these tangible forms of cultural expressions. The work of conservation societies throughout the world is to be lauded and can by no means be overemphasized. The work countless of you do is essential and integral to the survival of entire cultures and our unique historic treasures. That said, for conservation in 2010, if we are looking to be effective, we must be broader, far-reaching and alarm sounding.

Moving forward, as we embrace more holistic conservation approaches, it is critical that the very cultures we are “conserving” are engaged, at the table and thoroughly understand the exigency of what is at stake. I say this cautiously and respectfully in full recognition that it is likely not the first time you are hearing or considering the importance of making what you do relevant. Relevancy cannot be limited to the very group whose identity lies on the brink of extinction. Our efforts cannot serve the sole purpose of answering the inquiries of enthusiastic anthropologists, historians, intrigued tourists, much less to satisfy our own fascinations. Our efforts must be inclusive and exhaustive as we work together, as a community to drill the urgency of now.

In the past, “cultural preservation” meant colonizers and others from the West documenting and collecting cultural artifacts, unilaterally writing the world’s history books, building elaborate museums that recounted the stories of how and where civilization began.

Thankfully, in recent years, there has been a vocal outcry, in large part by many of you to rethink our priorities, our processes and methodologies for cultural preservation and conservation. Increasingly, there has been an emphasis on bringing multiple and varying perspectives to the table, particularly the all too often unheard voices of our indigenous communities. Conservation has shifted its approach and practices to encompass greater communication and understanding of how indigenous communities are understood and how varying cultural experiences are transmitted to the rest of the world.

There is increasing consensus among conservation groups that western, field specific, university and institute-concentrated research and dissemination of how we relate the stories of our indigenous communities is ineffective. In other words, too much is lost in translation and academia. Some have gone farther and argue that because of these differences, Western models and practices may be inappropriate for studying and preserving non-western cultures. Integrating indigenous concepts in the cultural preservation process it is argued is an important step towards a dynamic and people- centered approach to cultural preservation.

Under this model, or approach, museums become community or cultural centers that serve several functions. They are not only sites for the displaying of valued art objects and exhibits. They are places where education programs and training courses serve as platforms for cultural representation. Most fundamentally, the creation of cultural centers must be based on the local community’s needs and traditions, with their full engagement in the process. Cultural heritage preservation must ensure the communities themselves are part of the process- collecting language data, researching, recording and documenting history. Assistance and likely expertise, can and should come from the outside, but minority groups must be the ones taking a lead role; fostering such partnerships support local stewardship and leadership. Only when this occurs can we be certain that it is the minority or indigenous groups themselves, identifying and selecting what information, expressions and rituals they perceive as important and worthy of passing on to the generations that will follow.

The United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the primary body of the UN tasked with protecting and preserving culture cites that the world's population of indigenous people now numbers some 350 million individuals representing nearly 6000 distinct languages and cultures. While cultures themselves are dynamic, unique, vibrant and evolving, we all know, they are all too often fragile in the face of political, social and economic changes. Because of this, the discussion of preserving and maintaining cultural identities in the face of an increasingly globalized world is even more relevant.

For these reasons, if not for the resounding alarm of the imminent extinction of entire cultures, our commitment to protect our most vulnerable populations must be full-fledged. In the early 1900s, as colonial powers destroyed a small island nation in the Pacific, stripping them the very essence of what made them who they were and how they identified themselves in the world, few were present to react much less respond as we certainly should have. Today, the island of Banaba is still home to a few hundred ethnic Banabans who have largely intermarried with individuals from the surrounding islands. Most Bnabans today live in concrete houses left over from the days of the British Phosphate Commission’s occupation of the island. The few families that have remained on the island sleep in a single room, with kerosene and benzene lamps. The island boasts one small convenience store that sells basic supplies and fuel.

As one Banaban eloquently put it: “Te aba is both land and people, so Ocean Island will not disappear from Banaban identity no matter how far away in time or space. But this being so, the remaining ruins of so called universal ‘civilization’ and ‘industry’ on the island are also poignant metaphors for the damage to a people caused by Western colonialism, Capitalism and ‘other peoples’ Development.”

In closing, let us redefine and recommit to the importance of cultural preservation. We cannot bandage or fix the injustices of the past. But we can, however, have the power, knowledge and wherewithal to assist and empower our communities that are in danger NOW. Cultural diversity, but most critically its preservation through the years allows for a fascinating exchange of ideas. It enhances our individual understanding of ourselves and ultimately allows for a richer, more fulfilling human social experience.

Dankulu na si Yuus ma’ase and Thank you.

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